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Toronto Raptors news, statistics, analysis, podcasts, post-game reports, highlights, and GIFs.Tue, 03 Mar 2015 18:00:27 +0000en-UShourly1Crosshair: Chris Boshhttp://www.raptorsrepublic.com/2009/05/15/crosshair-chris-bosh-2/
http://www.raptorsrepublic.com/2009/05/15/crosshair-chris-bosh-2/#commentsFri, 15 May 2009 04:11:17 +0000http://raptorsrepublic.com/?p=765720/10…you keep those kinds of players. It was a challenging year to say the least, and no one on this team had a harder time with it then Chris. After a summer where he won Olympic gold as a KEY member of the US National team (KEY as in he was crucial to their winning,... Read more »

It was a challenging year to say the least, and no one on this team had a harder time with it then Chris. After a summer where he won Olympic gold as a KEY member of the US National team (KEY as in he was crucial to their winning, not a throw in like say…Michael Redd, KEY), and the highly touted pairing with Jermaine O’Neal, the year started on a high.

3-0 out the gates, with what we thought were quality wins over Philly and Golden State, I was looking foolish for predicting this team would be a .500 one at best. Then something began to happen. We noticed that Bosh (along with Calderon and Parker) was being played 40 minutes a night, “that can’t be sustainable” I told myself. O’Neal wasn’t working out, Bargnani sucked needed more time, and the Raptors were closing in on .500. Smitch got the axe, seemed like Bosh lost interest, and the Raptors quickly faded into obscurity.

What we considered Bosh not caring (or losing interest), was just a regular reaction to Smitch getting axed. You know, the guy who was with Bosh since his second season in the league. The guy that was there while Chris went from good to elite. It is only natural that he wasn’t all too happy when his coach for the last 4.5 years got axed. Then Triano comes in and changes everything up, mid-stream, without a real system. The guy just turned 25, excuse him if it took some adjusting.

Q: What was the only constant through the year? Through every win, loss, embarrassment?A: Chris Bosh.

Just wading through some of his numbers, it is clear he is as productive as BC is overrated:

Rebounding
He finished 6th in the league in rebounding. Many say that it took a heroic effort on the last game of the year (19 boards against the Bulls) to average 10.0 rebounds/game for the season, but had he been rebounding 9.9, would we think any less of him? For much of the season, Bosh has had to contend with defending the paint against penetration, and checking his own man in the block at the same time (Raptors don’t know what a defensive rotation is).

He has had minimal help on the boards, but yet has a Defensive Rebounding Percentage (DRB) of 22%. that means, he grabs 1 (a bit more then 1 actually) out of every 5 defensive rebounds (which means the other 9 players on the court grab the other 4 (a bit less then 4 actually)).

Scoring
9th in the league in scoring at 22.7pts/gm. Bosh scores from all over the court: 9.2pts from jumpers, 7pts from the post, and 6.5 from the line. Surprisingly, he produces only 2.2pts more from the perimeter then from the post, something many of us (myself included) wouldn’t have thought.

Amazingly, he is the only player in the league who is Top 10 in both rebounding and scoring. In fact, there were only two (Bosh and Howard 20/10 guys (three if you count Duncans 19.3, I do) in the league this season.

Wins Produced
The stat geeks over at Wages of Win have figured out that Bosh is responsible for 10.9 wins. Considering the Raptors as a team won 33, Bosh was directly responsible for a third of them.

Intangibles
Seems like he really wants to be here. He is out and about in the community pushing programs and selling gay $100 birthday t-shirts. Doesn’t sound like much, but Toronto has a troubled history of attracting talent, the fact that we have someone who wants to be here, is something we shouldn’t give up on too quickly.

Franchise? Max Player? Elite? All-NBA? Defensive force? Cornerstone? …Pansy? Whatever you label him, we can all agree that he is going to be one of the most highly sought after free agents at the end of next season. Only in Toronto can people be happy about signing Jay Triano to a three year contract as head coach, and vilify Chris Bosh for doing nothing but compete hard and put up 20/10 a game. Only in Toronto can a 25 year all-star (perennial) be labeled not worthy of a max contract, when the same people would rather build an NBA franchise around a one dimensional player, who has only put together half a season of solid ball in 3 years in the league.

What would I do? Whatever it takes to keep him a Raptor. Give him a max contract, and get him the help he needs to win. He may not be the prototypical franchise player, but he is someone you can build a team around. Colangelo believes on building family, and bringing people up internally, that same philosophy should apply to Bosh. It’s time we break our mold and KEEP our stars in the city instead of chasing them out.

]]>http://www.raptorsrepublic.com/2009/05/15/crosshair-chris-bosh-2/feed/104Crosshair: Jason Kaponohttp://www.raptorsrepublic.com/2009/05/07/crosshair-jason-kapono/
http://www.raptorsrepublic.com/2009/05/07/crosshair-jason-kapono/#commentsThu, 07 May 2009 14:57:14 +0000http://raptorsrepublic.com/?p=7542K-Fraud The big black stain on Bryan Colangelo’s resume. A bad signing to start with, Kapono has done nothing but give Colangelo critics a great backdrop for launching their attacks and with good reason. In the two years he’s been here he’s had zero impact on the team, mainly because he doesn’t do what he... Read more »

The big black stain on Bryan Colangelo’s resume. A bad signing to start with, Kapono has done nothing but give Colangelo critics a great backdrop for launching their attacks and with good reason. In the two years he’s been here he’s had zero impact on the team, mainly because he doesn’t do what he was hired to do which is shoot threes. To have a Kapono discussion it’s mandatory to first talk about why we shouldn’t be talking about him. He never should have been signed, if you recall defense and rebounding were on the top of the free-agent agenda at the end of the 06-07 campaign. The Nets had exploited our perimeter defense and Mikki Moore had taken care of the boards and we needed to address those known weak-points. Instead, Colangelo’s outside-the-box thinking of having another shooter open up space for Bosh inside backfired and now we’re left with two more years of overpaying for a one-dimensional specialty player.

False hope is what came out of the Orlando series. After making less than five threes in March ’08 he exploded against the Magic by shooting without a conscience. Suddenly it appeared that Sam Mitchell wasn’t using him incorrectly and that there was some hope that he could be integrated into whatever we were trying to do on offense. Most fans were willing to forget his first year with the club and looked ahead to 2008-09 with the hope that if one good came out of the Orlando series it would be Kapono finding his niche with the Raptors. It didn’t happen and the reasons are to this day hard to explain.

To say that he’s a shooter who doesn’t shoot is too simplistic even though the numbers point to that: He finished 12th in the league in 3-point shooting percentage but 78th in attempts. That’s better than the previous year when he finished #1 in percentage and didn’t even rank in the top 100 in attempts. But, just like Mitchell failed, Triano has been so far unsuccessful in getting Kapono enough clean looks, most of his good shots come in transition when the defense has yet to catchup. In the half-court set the defense sticks to him like white on rice forcing him to run around poorly set screens to get himself open, which rarely happens. Are we not running enough plays for Kapono? I don’t think so, he’s not a guy you run plays for, he’s a guy you park or rotate outside the three-point line and force the defense to move away from him through doubles on other players. You know, the same way people like Eddie House, JJ Reddick, Daequan Cook and Daniel Gibson get their threes.

He’s the most aggravating player on the team. He’s plagued with a tendency to pump-fake when no pump-fake is needed which often results in a travel. Most times that turnover happens late in crunch time which makes it even worse. Leo Rautins praises his basketball IQ because he pump-fakes and shoots runners without realizing that that is exactly what NBA defenses would rather have him do. Think about it, would you rather have Kapono take a three or drive to the rim? The acceptance and even praise of mediocrity pisses me off to no end.

Defensively, he’s terrible, as you would expect of a nonathletic, slow-moving entity whose idea of defense is channeling his man towards a help defender that isn’t there. Before the season began I wished that Kapono would take Moon’s minutes in late fourth quarter situations so that our choking offense could get some breathing room, I was proposing giving up a little bit of defense in favor of some offense (IMHO, Moon was an overrated defender). This thinking was also fueled by the Orlando series and was an error in judgment – never extrapolate success from a two-week stretch to an 82-game schedule (ahem, Ben Gordon).

Blaming Kapono for not opening up space and being easily guardable isn’t all his fault, just like his responsibility is to take his defender out to the perimeter so that Bosh has room inside, it is Bosh’s responsibility to take his man inside so that there’s more room for Kapono. What ended up happening was that Bosh played in the 18-20 foot range and Kapono roamed about in the 21-24 foot range. Not nearly enough space for either player to work off each others’ strengths.

The only way I see him being successful is if we play up-tempo and he gets his shots in transition, much like how Quentin Richardson worked in Phoenix. Who knows, if we play true up-tempo ball with Calderon pushing the ball it could even work. Calderon’s specialty is finding players on the perimeter from the perimeter and whenever we’re running the break he makes a special effort to look for Kapono. So far that combination hasn’t worked as well as it needs to but maybe that’s because of the lack of a system or style. In their two years together, neither Kapono or Calderon have proven that they can function together on a consistent basis, do they deserve a third?

To think back to the summer of ’07 and come to terms with the fact that a slasher like Mickael Pietrus was available and was signed by Orlando to lesser money (he makes 5.3M while Kapono averages 6.1M) is heartbreaking. Signing Pietrus was a no-brainer to me because he’s a far more complete player than Kapono will ever be. If you’re catching the Orlando-Boston series you’ll know that JJ Reddick can do what Kapono does at a fraction of the cost. Colangelo needs to make his big signings count for something and so far he’s drawn blanks.

If possible, we need to offload this cat and his 13M over the next two years. We already have one albatross in Marcus Banks taking up valuable cap space, no need for another. In the event of a Bosh trade, Colangelo better ensure that one of those two are swallowed by the other team.

]]>http://www.raptorsrepublic.com/2009/05/07/crosshair-jason-kapono/feed/20Crosshair: Roko Ukichttp://www.raptorsrepublic.com/2009/05/05/crosshair-roko-ukic/
http://www.raptorsrepublic.com/2009/05/05/crosshair-roko-ukic/#commentsTue, 05 May 2009 05:07:01 +0000http://raptorsrepublic.com/?p=7521If I had to buy a Raptors jersey, it’d be Roko’s. Not having watched many Lottomatica or Barcelona games, I was surprised at how raw Ukic really was. I didn’t expect a refined product but was hoping for him to be of reliable service, after all he’d been playing regularly on some of the better... Read more »

Not having watched many Lottomatica or Barcelona games, I was surprised at how raw Ukic really was. I didn’t expect a refined product but was hoping for him to be of reliable service, after all he’d been playing regularly on some of the better teams in Europe for a few years. The thinking was that instead of playing four years of college ball he got his learning done through a different, maybe even a better, means. Turns out there’s no real substitute for NCAA training and I was a fool for even entertaining that thought. If players like Nowitzki and Ginobili need time to adjust, so will Ukic. The unfair expectations set on him had a lot to do with the fact that he was the designated backup PG to start the season. I naturally assumed that Colangelo and the Raptors brass had done some heavy scouting and evaluation and had come to the conclusion that he was ready to step in. It wasn’t the case.

Colangelo admitted that one of his biggest failings was not to sure up the backup PG spot and that relying on the platoon of Solomon and Ukic was a huge gamble. Once Calderon got injured and was unable to perform at expected levels, this fatal mistake by Colangelo was further illuminated upon and turned out to be a major reason for our terrible season. So before you blame Ukic or Solomon for not performing, blame Colangelo for asking them to.

Parallel’s have often been drawn between Calderon and Ukic’s rookie years and I’m here to tell you that Roko’s been given half the chance Calderon got his first year. Take a look at their rookie numbers:

Calderon was playing a good chunk of minutes on a team that sucked while Ukic was playing marginal minutes on a team that was expected to contend. The stakes were higher for Ukic than they were for Calderon and having Solomon around to muddy the waters didn’t exactly help his development. Over the last two months of the season I was practically begging for Calderon to be rested and Ukic to assume the starting role so that he can speed up his development in time for next year. It didn’t happen and we wasted a great chance to prime him for next year. In the end he played half the minutes Calderon played in his rookie year, and that too in a spotty and sporadic way.

The drive to his right was Ukic’s main scoring threat and he became better and better at getting to the rim as the season went along. What happened when he got there was a different story. Part of his driving success could be attributed to a defense that hadn’t heard of him but he should get credit for the majority of his success there. You’re going to kill me for this but I liken his drive a lot to Rajan Rondo, when he gets a full head of steam at the top of three point of line, his determination does the rest. He didn’t beat his man using crazy crossovers or deceptive dribbles, no, he mostly used quick high-screen turns, transition momentum and hesitation moves to get there – just like Rondo.

The most noticeable thing about his finishing was how much he didn’t anticipate getting blocked. When it became a little too obvious that he had no idea how to deal with a waiting big man, he admitted that NBA shot-blockers were a different breed than the ones in Europe. This was an area of his game that didn’t improve through the course of the season, he showed little creativity around the rim and just went up for the straight layup which didn’t fool anyone. Perhaps a reverse layup or a better left hand is in order because it’s a shame to see those drives go unrewarded. Even then his drive managed to win us two of the biggest games of the season – Orlando and San Antonio.

I often talked about the tunnel-vision he demonstrated when he drove the ball, especially in late quarter possessions. His recognition of the whereabouts of his teammates was often poor and he attempted many shots when there were open options on the perimeter. When he made up his mind to drive, he did just that and with full intention of taking the shot instead of hunting for options as they presented themselves. Before I sound too critical let me point out that his PER48 assists are comparable to Calderon’s rookie year so its not like this is necessarily a permanent problem.

Pound-for-pound, his defensive effort was one of the best on the team. That’s not a joke, his defensive stance is excellent, his lateral movement is up to par and if his effort continues to be what it was, he’ll be a very capable defender. For a 6’5″ guy he moves well which prevented a lot of team’s from going at him in the post, and if anything, he started getting more scores from the low-block late in the season. The memory’s a little hazy right now but opposing PGs met with much more resistance when turning the corner against Ukic than Calderon and generally speaking, his defense was more than acceptable. I hope Triano can utilize his frame in front-court traps, his agility and size when combined with a defensive minded SF, say Marion, could prove to be a good defensive weapon when trying to kill a shot-clock.

The two biggest issues with Ukic are his shot and ball-handling. A three-point percentage of 18% and a 38% FG rate is extremely poor and can become cancerous for an offense. We saw teams leave him entirely unguarded on the perimeter which congested our offense even further, for him to stay on the court he’ll need the defense to respect his shot (as is true with any backcourt player). His off-season regimen needs to include 500 jumpers a day and maybe even a specialty shooting coach. I wish Dave Hopla was around.

Finally, his dribble is not up to par and far worse than what Calderon possessed in his rookie year. He has a tendency to succumb to pressure, make half-minded point-to-wing passes and doesn’t read the passing lanes as well as a 24 year old should. His tendency to dribble with his back to the basket (for fear of getting the rock stolen) affects his court-vision which reduces his effectiveness. Too many times did the rock end up leaving his hands when was the only ball-handler on the court, and only because of a mild trap where he picked up his dribble. Since Calderon’s forte isn’t drive ‘n kick, its imperative that Roko’s be and for that to happen he needs to play facing the basket, tighten his dribble and recognize opportunities. Really, I can see what they’re talking about in his DX profile.

Everything in this post is written with the knowledge that he will get better as he gets more playing time, however, that can’t be his only source of NBA training. The summer is very important for him and he needs to bring something good to training camp or we could see a repeat of last season. This summer Colangelo won’t be standing pat and relying on Ukic to deliver, he’ll have another PG on the team and if Ukic doesn’t step up, the backup role that should be his can easily be given to someone else. It’s up for grabs, depends if he wants it bad enough. In the best case, he’s the slasher and distributor that we need, in the worst case he’s a guy you can’t afford to have on the floor because he doesn’t threaten without the ball.

]]>http://www.raptorsrepublic.com/2009/05/05/crosshair-roko-ukic/feed/20Crosshair: Andrea Bargnanihttp://www.raptorsrepublic.com/2009/04/23/crosshair-andrea-bargnani-2/
http://www.raptorsrepublic.com/2009/04/23/crosshair-andrea-bargnani-2/#commentsThu, 23 Apr 2009 05:23:14 +0000http://raptorsrepublic.com/?p=7415Hard to explain his turnaround. Things couldn’t have looked worse for him in December when all he could do was make a constant fool of himself. His play during that month made the Bargnani of 2007-08 look like an All-Star and he was biggest disappointment of the season at the time. He could do no... Read more »

Things couldn’t have looked worse for him in December when all he could do was make a constant fool of himself. His play during that month made the Bargnani of 2007-08 look like an All-Star and he was biggest disappointment of the season at the time. He could do no right, his jumper wasn’t falling, nobody was biting on his fakes, he wasn’t rebounding, wasn’t even boxing out and other than playing decent man-defense he was giving us nothing but migraines. It all changed for him as soon as O’Neal got traded – like a phoenix rising from the ashes, he began justifying his #1 pick status. Well, maybe not #1 but he’s shed himself of the ‘stiff’ label that was plastered all over him.

His summer had resulted in a bulkier 250 pound frame, 25 over the previous year. He had gone through the big man camps, worked with John Lucas and had impressed Jermaine O’Neal in Vegas workouts. It appeared that the Raptors organization had done their best to try and help him get out of his sophomore year funk. The season began with him playing reasonably well in a bench role. Although he suffered through a couple scoreless nights early on, he was making a concerted effort to move inside the three-point line and into the elbow area where he shot over shorter defenders. His game was still strictly perimeter oriented but at least he had moved closer to the rim which was all one could hope for given his disastrous second year.

The rebounding was still a huge concern, he didn’t grab more than five rebounds until November 21st and many were pointing to Nate Robinson and T.J Ford who were both averaging more than him. As November went and December came he started to move away from the paint, for a 16 game stretch he shot under 50% and finished December shooting 34.6%. Forget about driving, he couldn’t even get his three pointer straight, he shot 27.3% from downtown in December and took a lot of heat during the two five game losing streaks in December. Needless to say he wasn’t giving us anything and a couple 6-turnover games late in December completed a forgettable month, one in which the Raptors went 4-12.

Jermaine O’Neal’s acquisition was a vote of non-confidence for Bargnani. The Raptors had traded for someone who played his position and this had to have startled him, but he accepted the role and subscribed to the talk that this didn’t mean a reduced role but one where him, Bosh and O’Neal would split minutes with two of the three being on the court at the same time, something Triano had alluded to in the summer. While Bosh was ridden hard by Sam Mitchell and played 41+ minutes in November, O’Neal and Bargnani played exactly 28.7 minutes in the month. For December (our worst month) Bargnani was at 24.5 while O’Neal averaged 29.5. It’s not like the appointment of Triano was the solution, if anything, Bargnani’s poor play had forced Triano to reduce his minutes and test out whether Jermaine O’Neal could give them anything. Later on we found out that it was towards the end of December that Colangelo had decided to end the O’Neal experiment and perhaps the increase in his minutes could be attributed to showcasing.

If there was one silver lining to the O’Neal trade it is the effect he had on Bargnani. Bargnani spoke highly of the toughness and intensity O’Neal brought which he had taken a shining to. Even though he displayed none of those attributes in 2008 we later found out that the veteran big man had had an effect. Bargnani was temporarily promoted to the starting role after O’Neal went down in late December; this move later turned out to be a permanent transition.

The team’s 7-9 record in January which included a seven game losing streak took us out of the playoff picture but it did produce a new Andrea Bargnani, one which even better than his rookie year version. He averaged 19.8 points and 6.2 rebounds on 49% shooting while hitting 48% from downtown. It’s hard to explain a resurgence of this magnitude but in hindsight I’ll attempt an explanation.

First, his fight came back. Maybe he finally saw the opportunity to usurp O’Neal as the starting center and stepped up his game. Maybe he read too many papers and websites which kept mocking his play, his selection and his attitude and decided enough was enough. Maybe Triano took him aside and had a chat with him, I don’t know what it was but he decided to prove his worth. Second, when things started to go well for him his confidence came back and as we all know, that is a supreme factor in basketball. The fact that he lost his confidence for so long is still worrisome because what if he goes through another terrible 20 day stretch, is the old crappy Bargnani going to return? Judging by his interviews nothing seems to faze the man but results over the last two seasons have proven to be contrary of this belief.

Bosh and O’Neal proved to be too similar to be successful. Both were black holes that couldn’t create good shot opportunities for others and having them on the court alternating post-ups wasn’t working out. Once Bargnani replaced O’Neal in the lineup it meant that another shooter with excellent range was positioned on the perimeter thus spacing the floor. When O’Neal, Bargnani and Bosh were on the court they rarely were able to take advantage of their size to dominate an opponent on the glass or in the paint, instead the ball got stuck and never moved. When Bargnani did get the ball on the perimeter, Bosh and O’Neal were congesting the lane which meant his drive was that much harder. That’s when you saw the hard-dribble and a forced jumper.

Once Bargnani had confidence and floor space to drive, he let his talent take over and played the game in a natural way where he took what the defense gave him. He stopped letting defenders off the hook by forcing him into bad perimeter shots and he punished any switches that saw him covering a shorter man. He didn’t settle for the jumper in 18-foot live-dribble situations and instead drove straight into the paint and got better and better at finishing. He played a lot like Dirk. Let’s compare their third year numbers:

His third year number’s are closer to Nowitzki’s second year more than his third. These numbers make more sense when you consider how the Raptors organization wasted the summer after his rookie year by not giving him any specialized training or coaching. The Raptors expected him to ride his rookie form into next year but the scouts had other things to say. They came back with a book on Bargnani who was still trying to use his rookie year moves to beat them (shooting threes against a defense that didn’t know he could shoot).

The most consistently part of his game has been his individual man-defense. His defensive play against Yao, Howard and even Shaq was solid and you could always count on Bargnani to do a fundamentally solid defensive job on his check. This part of his game deserves an A. Both the fans and Colangelo know that he’s not going to be a great rebounder so we’ve decided to live with it as long as he’s diligent about boxing his man out. There’s no point hammering him for his rebounding as long as he brings the other parts of his game. However, we can hammer him on his help defense, rotations and close-outs. He’s terrible and I don’t know how much to blame that on him or the lack of a system and/or the lack of familiarity with a system. All I know is that his recognition of who to rotate to after the dribble penetration deserves a D. His ability to close-out gets an F. Now this might sound harsh given that he’s 7-foot and not exactly agile when it comes to perimeter defense, but if he’s going to make a living on the perimeter on the offensive end, his perimeter defensive game needs to stay up to task.

What’s next for Bargnani? Simply put, another summer of refining what he learned in the second half of this season so he can make the statistical jump Dirk made in his third year. He has the skill and intelligence to create shots for others and I would like to see his assist numbers improve. He might not be as refined a scorer as Dirk but he’s a much better passer and his stats need to reflect that. As he sees more diverse NBA defenses he’ll have to recognize them and change his attack plan accordingly, he has the intelligence and skill to do that and whether he’ll be able to put it together while not losing his confidence is the only hindering factor towards him and future All-Star.

Andrea, sorry if we were a little rough on you early but frankly, you deserved it. Let’s put the past behind us and make an effort not to regress but to improve. Make us feel that if we lose Bosh it’s totally okay because we have you. You’re the most talented guy on the roster, let’s see it flow through.

This is likely my last post for a week or so as I’m off to Jamaica. I’d tweet from there but the roaming costs would bankrupt a sheikh. Enjoy spring. @raptorsrepublic.

]]>http://www.raptorsrepublic.com/2009/04/23/crosshair-andrea-bargnani-2/feed/57Crosshair: Joey Grahamhttp://www.raptorsrepublic.com/2009/04/22/crosshair-joey-graham/
http://www.raptorsrepublic.com/2009/04/22/crosshair-joey-graham/#commentsWed, 22 Apr 2009 04:26:45 +0000http://raptorsrepublic.com/?p=7319If you can’t beat Jamario Moon, you’re not good enough. Part of what made Joey Graham look decent in his fourth year is the fact that he was terrible in his previous three. Sam Mitchell did his best to suffocate him which led many of us to believe that his career might be over after... Read more »

Part of what made Joey Graham look decent in his fourth year is the fact that he was terrible in his previous three. Sam Mitchell did his best to suffocate him which led many of us to believe that his career might be over after his rookie contract. He met with a revival of sorts under Triano who preferred him to Jamario Moon, if for nothing more than to get a good look at exactly what he could do for the club. Joey responded by showing glimpses of what we all knew was hidden deep inside him – a slasher with a brute affinity for the rim.

He was passable, even borderline acceptable but as with anything in life, consistency is what counts and he has a tendency to be absolutely invisible for quarters at a time. Since he doesn’t do what he’s supposed to do on a consistent basis, he becomes unreliable and therefore expendable. The question to ask before deciding on Graham is whether he was given a fair shot. Under Sam Mitchell he was the victim of an extremely quick hook and struggled to find his rhythm and role in the rotation. He played a total of 331 minutes last year but saw that number jump to 1541 this season, the most he’s played since his rookie year. He played 20 minutes a game, was the first or second player off the bench under Triano, and was looked for in the offense. I thought he was given a fair shot this year and yet only amassed an unimpressive 7.7 points and 3.7 rebounds, sadly these are career numbers.

There were moments where his game seemed to fit into what Triano was trying to do. Early on he was great at moving without the ball giving the point guard an option in the high paint area. He effectively used his physical advantage and surprisingly sound finishing ability against smaller players but as the weeks wore on, we saw less and less of that and more of Joey catching the ball at the wing and displaying a classic case of tunnel-vision by driving to the rim without ever looking for a secondary option. Sometimes the result was a spectacular dunk but in most cases the offense came to a halt as he was sealed off and searched for a mate to bail him out. It’s this inability of Graham that is frustrating, we know he can get to the rim but his decision making in the face of help is poor, this can be considered a major flaw for a player on a team which counts on ball movement.

His skill-set is hardly unique, there are players in the D-League, college and Europe that, like Joey, have a preference for the drive but unlike Joey, possess a more fluid offensive game. Losing him will not hurt us in any area and whatever he brought can be replaced and then some by bringing in someone like Carlos Delfino who possesses a better jumper, better defensive footwork, higher basketball IQ and an equally capable drive. My point is that there’s nothing Graham brought which can’t be found elsewhere and in better quality, except for maybe his physical strength.

Defensively, he was asked to guard tough matchups at his position and wasn’t terrible or impressive. His lateral quickness was an issue and when taken away from the rim in one-on-one situations he played recovery defense before he even got beat. He was asked to guard PF/C’s in certain situations (Magic, Rockets) and performed admirably, mostly because it allowed him to use brute physical strength rather than his quickness. The interchangeability and flexibility he provided was a welcome sight but it also spoke to our lack of depth at the big man position and I for one sure don’t want Joey playing the PF.

His ball-handling skills were weak coming out of college and he hasn’t improved on them. His jumper was average in his rookie year and it’s still average now, the same goes for his court-vision, guard skills and first-step. None of the things that needed to happen for him to be a rotational NBA player have happened and he’s still stuck with the same skill-set he had coming out of college. He simply hasn’t grown as a player nor has he stepped up to the challenge of claiming an NBA job. Losing the starting SF job to Jamario Moon and Carlos Delfino the year before last and then to Jamario Moon this year were the two low points of his low point filled NBA career.

The case for a Graham’s return hinges on the argument that he’s yet to realize his potential and that Mitchell’s suffocation is still holding him back. It’s an argument that carried a lot more weight before the season began but as of now, its very watered down. There’s a lot to like about his athleticism and my original evaluation of Graham was far more favorable than this but fact of the matter is that we need to improve both offensively and defensively at the wing positions and he simply can’t be option #1 at the backup SF. We have to do better. I was even mulling over offering him a contract in the 2-3M range but then I came to my senses, if it ain’t happened now it’s likely never to happen.

We need to find a SF who has a multi-dimensional offensive game and a consistent scoring threat off the bench. Kapono’s not cutting it and relying on Joey to be that is setting yourself up for disappointment. On the other hand we are a team that’s lacking athleticism which happens to be Joey’s strength but he’s yet to show that he can use his God-given ability to produce anything more than mediocrity and the Raptors can’t afford to wait any longer, the organization can’t be blamed for not giving him a chance. Judging by the fact that he wasn’t even mentioned once in Colangelo’s press conference we can safely assume he’s done as a Raptor. Danny Granger…Danny Granger…Danny Granger…Danny Granger…Danny Granger…Danny Granger…Danny Granger…